


The Only Thing We Haven’t Done Yet Is Die (And It’s Me And My Plus One In The Afterlife)

by HarlequinSmiles



Category: Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys (Album), Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance
Genre: Angst, Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, I am a bad person for writing this, I'm Going to Hell, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Just to confirm I wasn't trying to go for anything other than platonic Pete/Gerard okay, M/M, Major Character Injury, Pete Wentz Is Sad, Pete and Patrick (Fall Out Boy), Peterick, Possibly Unrequited Love, Sad Ending, and the killjoys rush off into the sunset and get killed anyway haha im crying inside, god I am a bad person haha
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-10
Updated: 2016-04-10
Packaged: 2018-06-01 09:32:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6512827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HarlequinSmiles/pseuds/HarlequinSmiles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He’s got his machete laying across his knees, the thorn necklace peeking out from the neck of his shirt. Party watches him: staring out of the window as the desert flashes past them, a blur of dry colour and dust.<br/>People don’t get rescued from BL/Ind. The chances of Decaydance getting his friend out alive are miniscule, and Party still doesn’t know why they agreed to take him with them in the first place. Maybe it was out of pity. Possibly.</p><p>-Set between Na Na Na and SING, when the Killjoys are travelling to Battery City, but happen to pick up a stray Pete Wentz who is heading in the same direction-</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Only Thing We Haven’t Done Yet Is Die (And It’s Me And My Plus One In The Afterlife)

**Author's Note:**

> (Pete is 'Decaydance' by the way. Patrick's 'Soul Punk'.)  
> (I don't know if there's any Killjoy names out there for those two already, so I kinda just made it up.)  
> (Feel free to yell at me if I've got it wrong)

He’s got his machete laying across his knees, the bloody scarlet hanging heavy on the horizon like a blanket, the rapidly-fading light gouging out shadows across his face and neck, over the thorn necklace peeking out from the neck of his shirt. Party watches him through the rearview mirror of the trans-am: leaning against the rear passenger door, staring out of the window as the desert flashes past them, a blur of dry colour and dust.

They tear through the desert, the tires eating up kilometres and kilometres of dirt and the engine growls like it’s hungry for more. There’s a rope around his heart, getting tighter and tighter with each mile and mile they travel, as if Party’s being lead straight to Battery City, straight to Korse and the girl that they’ve managed to lose.

Decaydance is even smaller than Ghoul, bleached blonde hair cropped short, his chest a ragged mess of tattoo ink and blood, art wrapping up his arms like snakes. His shirt’s splattered with about a million different colours of dried paint, a symbol painted on by hand in the very middle of it- an isosceles trapezium, a three point crown on top- but some of the paint’s beginning to fall off now,  fluttering to the trans-am’s floor like snowflakes. Party’s not at the best angle to really see, but he wonders if he sees fresh blood seeping through the bandages wrapped tightly around his stomach, or if it’s nothing more than a trick of the light. Decaydance is still clutching the photo in his free hand, his knuckles scraped raw and dirty. He himself is one of the guys in the photo, a half-smile on his face, his arm across the shoulders of a smaller man with dirty blonde hair and glasses.

Party’s sick of that photo now, sick of the constant natter about the ‘Soul Punk’ guy that Decaydance is planning on rescuing. Tired of ‘there was this one time when he set fire to the cans of food we’d found rather than just cooking them-‘ and the constant reference to him in the present tense, as if BL/Ind won’t have just killed him as soon as they dragged him away. And if they haven’t done that, then he’ll have been made into another mindless drac by now anyway, and he’ll be as good as dead then, anyway.

People don’t just escape from BL/Ind. They don’t just get rescued, either. The chances of Decaydance actually getting his friend out alive are so small that there’s almost no point even recognising them, and Party still doesn’t know why they agreed to take him with them in the first place. Maybe it was out of pity. Possibly.

Decaydance is still talking about his friend hours later, when night has fallen and Party’s gripping the steering wheel so tight that his knuckles are purple. Jet Star’s still listening patiently, nodding his head once in a while and agreeing with whatever the guy says, and Ghoul’s already passed out, his face pressed up against the window. He might be drooling.

They drive for another hour before finally stopping- they find a hollowed-out Dead Pegasus gas station and pull up there, scavenging up as much gas as they can manage before settling down for the night. Stars stretching out above their heads in a rhapsody of light, a fine chorus of burning gases that scream into the blackness, trillions and trillions of kilometres away, nothing but a pinpoint of colour from Earth.

Kobra’s stretched out next to Decaydance, watching him from the corner of his eye. They make a mismatched pair- Decaydance is smaller and looks strong, but Kobra’s tall and all sharp edges.. Both of them are gaunt and dirty and tired- no, scrap that, everyone is- but that’s just what the desert does to you; drags all the strength out of you within days, leaves you a walking, breathing corpse that takes each day as it comes. Party’s used to it by now. In fact, the constant fatigue means that he’s sometimes able to sleep better than he ever did before.

Jet Star fiddles with the radio, the static jumping from station to station like it’s being chased between the radio waves. The hiss of BL/Ind broadcasts intertwines with the crackle of the fire as Ghoul pokes at it, warily, like it’s about to snap at him at any moment. Decaydance is still talking- more like gushing- about his friend, how amazing they are. Party’s half-listening, half-helping Ghoul feed the fire.

“I mean, his voice, man,” Decaydance continues dreamily, and he’s not really looking at anyone- staring into the fire like there’s something flickering in there that only he can see. “The songs he can sing, it’s fucking unnatural. Pure gold, something beautiful. I never thought someone could sing like that until I heard him the first time.”

Party bites back a remark and glares back at the fire, not even answering when Ghoul nudges him with concern.

Decaydance continues, the words tumbling out of his mouth like water, or like the booze Party used to drown himself in before he first met Jet and Ghoul, and they all decided to start changing the world piece by jagged piece.

“Seriously, I’m gonna get him out of BL/Ind’s place, and once we’ve found our other friend, I’m going to make him sing again. Whenever he wants. And I’m gonna write him more songs to sing too. He won’t have an excuse not to then.” He breathes out a soft laugh. “And I’m actually going to put on a shirt when he yells at me to from now on, no matter how hot it gets.”

Fuck; Party still doesn’t know why he’s getting so pissed off.

“Wait a moment,” Jet looks up from the radio he’s still fiddling with, and Party’s half-tempted to just tell him to give up on it for once- it’s not like they’re going to need Dr D’s broadcasts for a while yet. They’re going straight into BL/Ind territory, after all, there’s going to be patrols everywhere in the zones, more and more the closer they get to Battery City, so there’s no real need for any updates on the outer zones. Jet Star scratches his head. “I thought you said your group had four of you. What about the other guy?”

Decaydance catches his breath and fixes him with a long, hard look, and Jet Star turns back to the radio.

The shape of the gas station drags out long shadows across the desert as Decaydance breathes in a shaky breath. His voice sounds like cracked glass when he starts talking again, on and on and on about his best friend and _how fucking perfect_ he is, and Party wants to tell him to _shut the fuck_ up so, so badly, so badly that he finally gives in and stands up, fixes him with a glare.

“You realise that’s just some bullshit, right?” he says, tugging a hand through his hair. There’s red staining his fingers when he pulls his hand away, like blood. “You get that you’re not actually going to get out of there alive, whatever you seem to think?”

Decaydance looks up at him with an even look, and his voice is so steady, so detached when he speaks that it drags shivers up Party’s spine. “So?” he asks. Next to him, Kobra is silently shaking his head, and Party’s biting his tongue so hard that he can taste blood in his mouth.

“Really?” He spits out a laugh and it’s bitter. “You spend all this time tracking us down, begging us to help you get to Battery City, and that’s it? Make up some bullshit about happily ever afters when you know that you’re going to get shot down within the first ten seconds of being inside S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/W’s headquarters?”

Ghoul hisses “Party, fucking _stop_ ,” and tries to pull him back away with a hand on his shoulder, but he shrugs him off. Decaydance has gone stock-still, face twisted in an expression that Party can’t identify in the flickering firelight. He can’t even tell if the guy’s breathing. Kobra’s sitting next to him, watching as if one of them is about to explode at any moment, but he can’t figure out who needs diffusing first. That, or just shatter into a million pieces, like a broken church window, fragments of colour dancing in the light. Pretty, but painful. Just like life itself, if Party wanted to start getting pretentious.

Decaydance stands up- slowly, painfully, and Party’s going to pretend to ignore the way that he’s still pressing his hand to his side- and even though he’s almost a head smaller than him, Party’s almost intimidated by him. He’s just thankful that the guy left his machete on the ground.

“You know what?” he hisses. “It’s not about me here. I fucked up, I fucked up real bad, and I lost my best friend because of it. And I’m going to fix this and save him, and whatever happens to me isn’t important. BL/Ind can kill me or torture me or make me one of their dracs, but as long as I get Patrick out of there, I don’t care.”

Party shakes his head in disbelief. “You’re on a goddam suicide mission.”

Decaydance’s laugh is bitter and sharp, like razor wire, and it feels like knives against Party’s ears. “And you guys aren’t? It’s all over the radio stations; you’re all running off to the BL/Ind headquarters with no thought for your own safety, just because you’re this group of famous zonerunners who are so pathetic that they can’t even protect a six year old girl without getting her captured by monsters.”

Party lunges at him, ready to choke the fucking life out of him, as Ghoul hauls him back, and Jet Star cuts through with a “got it!” as the radio hisses and Dr D’s voice tumbles out of the radio speakers.

Party glares. “You’re an asshole,” he snarls, turning on his heel and stomping over to Jet. He hears Decaydance spit out a laugh behind him.

“Oh I know,” he says, and Party scowls.

They cluster around it as Ghoul high-fives Jet and Kobra gives him a pleased nod. Decaydance groans as Kobra helps him to his feet, and Party can see him from the corner of his eye- standing awkwardly, arms wrapped tight around his middle, face half-twisted in barely-concealed pain. His hair’s mussed up into wild tufts.

There’s nothing new to hear; there’s reports of even more dracs collecting Zone Three, but other than that, there’s nothing for any of them to worry about. They’ve got a maximum of two more days’ drive to get to Battery City, as long as they don’t stop anywhere for too long during the day.

Two more days until they can finally end this. The thought fills Party with a feeling he can’t identify- part exhilaration, part terror. The chances of them all getting out of Battery City are miniscule.

It takes a while before Dr Death begins with the dead, the list getting longer every time it’s read. Some of the zonerunners have names, some of them don’t- only identified by their clothes, their weapons, their tattoos. The broadcast ends with a final zonerunner- Party picks out a description of a beard, tattoos everywhere, - and he doesn’t have any idea who they are, but Decaydance sure seems to. He lets out a low, trembling breath and draws a hand across his face, and they all notice the tears in his eyes but not one of them mention it.

“Fuck.” His voice is hoarse. “Andy. Fuck.”

He shuffles back to his previous spot, sits down in the dirt, drawing in on himself, expression closed off. His eyes are shut, and it’s only Kobra that goes over to him, rests a hand on his shoulder, mutters short reassurances into his ear.

Whatever Kobra says, it helps a little, because Decaydance sits up slightly and rubs his eyes. He’s still in pain though- Party can see in the way that he holds himself, and there’s blood spotting his hands when he lifts them away from his side.

He doesn’t eat any of the food either. Party sees him sneaking it to Kobra with a short smile, and Kobra accepts it without a word.

They leave a before the sun comes up- disappearing in a cloud of dust, the wind toying with it as they do, whipping it up into tendrils of dirt and sand that glimmers in the watery light. Jet drives this time; Ghoul riding shotgun, Party squeezing between Kobra and Decaydance, the machete handle sticking into his calf. Now that he’s finally close enough to take a decent look at it, Party realises that the blade is attached to a fretboard- a bass, by the looks of it. Three of the strings have snapped already, and the fourth looking halfway there.

Jet stops driving long enough to switch places with Ghoul after five or six hours, and Party winces when he sees Ghoul swing his feet off the dashboard, leaving mud littered on the top of it like breadcrumbs. He’d never even realised that they’d been up there in the first place.

They tear through the desert, wind hitting square in the face and dragging its fingers through his hair, the music pouring from the radio and spreading through the empty desert air like a battle cry. With every second, Party feels his heartbeat quicken, and he knows that they’re getting closer.

Closer to BL/Ind. Closer to Korse. Closer to saving the girl who should never have been taken in the first place.

He leans back against the headrest and closes his eyes, cuts out all the sound around him, and promises that he’ll never let the little girl that they all promised to protect out of his life again.

 -

_Party knows that it’s a dream. It doesn’t make it any less terrifying though._

_There’s blood. Blood everywhere. He can’t see it yet- not that he’s looking out for it- but he can smell it, heavy and acrid, hanging onto the air and drowning him, swallowing him whole, and he chokes as he runs, one hand wrapped tight around his gun, the other covering his mouth and nose, desperate to block out the smell._

_He’s gotta- he’s gotta-_

_The building is filled with noise. The zap of ray guns, the hum of electricity, the occasional scream puncturing through the mess of sound like a spray of bullets. Everything’s moving too fast for him to see; there’s flashes of colour bursting up amidst the sea of white and black he’s surrounded by, and he can see his friends around him, dodging blasts and furiously firing back with their own._

_There’s Kobra and Ghoul to his left, Jet to his right, draculoids closing in all around._

_He’s gotta- he’s gotta-_

_He spins around wildly, looking for something, desperately, and when he sees it, he doesn’t stop himself from sprinting and sliding down onto the floor in front of her. The girl’s standing stock still, hands hanging limply by her sides, and she doesn’t respond when Party pulls her in for a hug, but that doesn’t matter. He’s done it-_ they’ve _done it- they’ve saved her, they beat BL/Ind._

_“Party Poison,” she says in a small voice, and he lets her go._

_“You okay, kid?” he’s about to say, about to ruffle her hair and give her a smile, but she takes a step back, the look in her eyes cold and calculating. “Party Poison,” she says again, this time bitterly, and he looks at her with confusion as he feels a hand on his shoulder, spinning him around, and it’s Kobra Kid, hair soaked in blood, one entire side of his face completely covered in it. His glasses are broken and there’s scarlet gurgling between his lips, but it’s impossible, Party saw him seconds ago- Party saw him seconds ago and he was fine…_

_“Party Poison,” he hisses, and then it’s Jet Star that’s punching him square in the face, Jet Star with his eyepatch missing and blood pouring down his chest in a torrent, knocking him to the floor. And Party gasps and tries to move, tries to reach the girl, ‘cause he’s so close now, he can save her, he can get her out of here, but he’s being hauled back by his hair and there’s agony ripping through his scalp._

_“Party Poison,” Ghoul snarls. Party’s thrown onto his back and Ghoul’s straddling his waist, wrapping his fingers around his throat. And he’s trying to push Ghoul off, but he’s far heavier than he looks, far stronger than Party ever imagined, and he pushes his hips up, tries to shake him off, but he can’t, he can’t move, and out of the corner of his eye he can see the girl, head down and face blank, standing amidst the carnage around her, and he’s gotta- he’s gotta-_

_-_

Decaydance is shaking him awake, fingers pressing a little too deeply into his forearm and sending little spears of pain shooting down into Party’s fingers.

“What is it?” He chokes, sits up so fast that he could easily have given himself whiplash, already reaching for the gun holster strapped to his leg. Ghoul’s there, asleep, and Kobra and Jet. They’re all still there. Alive.

Decaydance is sitting back on his haunches, watching him closely. Watching his every move. His every expression. Not with the pointed interest of an opponent, or the razor-sharp attention of an enemy. More with a tired fascination, as if Party’s a puzzle that he can’t figure out, no matter how hard he tries. It’s a look he’s seen before on the others; Jet often gives him the same when he pulls up another fanciful plan to destroy BL/Ind forever. And Ghoul looks at him like that when he sees Party sketching him again on the back of a wanted poster, usually with a stub of a pencil he’s managed to snatched from Dr Death’s place.

“Dude,” he says, and he sounds bemused. “You were trying to choke yourself in your sleep.”

Party’s back is stiff and sore from sleeping on the ground, but he looks over at Decaydance and raises an eyebrow. “Have you actually got some sleep yet?” he asks, and he’s given a small laugh in reply.

“You sound like Patrick.” His smile is small and sad and fragile. “Soul Punk, I mean,” he amends, and he gives a small shrug. “I don’t sleep that much, really. Thoughts don’t shut off, you know?”

Party nods silently, and Decaydance shakes his head and gives the same small smile again, turns and slouches against the side of the trans-am, slides down, legs straight and arms at his side. He hangs his head a bit. He looks tired, defeated. He looks as if he’s been punched.

“I know that you don’t think that I can save him,” he murmurs, drained. “And I know why you think that too. But the thing is that I gotta try, no matter what you guys think. I can’t lose him, not now, not ever, no matter what happens to me.”

He sees Party raise an eyebrow and shrugs. “I fucked up,” he says softly. “I fucked up real bad, dude, and I lost my best friend because of it. So I gotta save him. I owe it to him, if anything.” Decaydance looks up at him, all wide eyes and jaw set in determination, all bloodshot and sleepless, all stubborn expectation. The glowing ash from the dying fire highlights the pallid skin that seems to grow paler by the day, the gaunt face, shadows pooling in the deep hollows of his collarbones.

He looks awful.

“You want to take better care of yourself if you want to survive around here,” Party says, and Decaydance laughs again. It’s not an amused laugh- it’s the kind of laugh you’d spit out when you’re sad; when you’re so sad that it’s surprising, and it’s so surprising that all you can do is laugh.

“ _Suurviive,”_ he drawls out. “ _Of course_.”

It’s just Party and Decaydance awake. Everyone else is still curled up near the dying ashes of the fire, the desert stretching on endlessly in every direction. It’s all an illusion though- BL/Ind’s headquarters are only a few hours away now. By tomorrow, they’ll have reached it. Party’s excited. Party’s terrified.

He bites his lip. He doesn’t want to have to do this, but he’s going to anyway, even though Party has a feeling that whatever he says, Decaydance is still going to go after his friend anyway.

“Listen,” he says, “the chances that you’ll find Soul Punk alive are really small, you know that, right?”

Decaydance shakes his head wearily. “Don’t do this to me, man. I don’t need this.”

“No, really.” Party hates himself for this, he really does, but he can’t stop himself now. “Do you really think that S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/W will actually keep him alive after… how long has it been now? Two weeks?”

“Three,” he whispers. “It’s been three weeks.”

“I was speaking to Dr Death-Defying a few weeks ago,” Party presses. “And he said that he’d heard about other zonerunners being caught and… they became dracs, Decaydance. They got fucked up in the head and fed up on meds, became nothing more than mindless draculoids. If you actually _do_ manage to find him alive, what are you gonna do then? He’s not going to see you as anything but another enemy. You’ll kill him or he’ll kill you and-“

 _“Shut up!”_ Decaydance hisses. “Don’t talk about him like that. You don’t know _fuck all_ about him. ‘Trick’s different. He’ll make it. He’ll be fine.”

“Really?” Party just wants to shake himself, wants to yell at himself to stop talking, to stop doing this to a guy that wants to go to the ends of the earth for his best friend. “That’s what you’re hoping? That by some miracle, your friend is _special_ , that he’s better than every other poor sod that BL/Ind have got their hands on?” He spits out a laugh and shakes his head. “You’re fucking demented if you actually believe that.”

Decaydance folds in on himself like he’s been broken. He pulls in a breath that sounds like shattered glass before lifting his head and meeting Party’s gaze with an expression that’s so heartbreakingly desolate, so desperate, that his heart clenches. “You don’t understand. It’s my fault that he’s there in the first place. I was selfish and stupid and it’s _all my fault_. Don’t you get that? I fucking _need_ him. I can’t lose him, not ever. I can lose anyone but him. I _have_ lost everyone but him. But I need him, I fucking _need_ him more than anything else.”

And it clicks.

“ _Oh,_ ” Party says. “ _Oh._ ”

Decaydance lets out a breath. It sounds like a failed attempt at a laugh. “There was this time, you know, back when we first met- must be years ago now, man- where we got jumped on by this group of draculoids. We didn’t have anything to defend ourselves with; we were barely out of Zone Two, and we weren’t anything that they couldn’t handle. This one drac had knocked me down, aimed the gun at my head, but he got in the way. Soul Punk, I mean. And… he partly got in the way of the blast. Took a neat chunk outta my shoulder but…” Decaydance sounds far away, as if he’s been dragged back to that moment, when his body was reverberating with Fight or Flight, his brain screaming to figure an escape. “But ‘Trick? His hand got- the blast completely shredded his hand, man. Lost everything from the wrist down. Fuckin’ idiot. Shoulda let me die instead, but he just _had_ to be the goddamn hero. He was in agony for _months_ , yeah? Absolute _months_ , but even during that time, he kept telling me that he’d do it all again, that I was his best friend and he didn’t regret it one bit.”

Party sits. He watches and he waits, waits for Decaydance to drag up enough courage to start talking again.

And he does, after a while.

“It’s not how it works in the stories and shit, you know, when I tried to tell him that I… you know. Andy and Joe went off scavenging or something, and then it was just me and ‘Trick, just sitting there, checking over the cans of food we’d found. And I said something stupid- all pretentious, like ‘ _the sky looks like blood soaking through bandages_ ’ or something, because it was late afternoon and the sun was just starting to set. And he smiled, and we were just… we were just sitting next to each other in this perfect, comfortable silence, and he was just like ‘ _you know you’re my best friend, right?’_ and said something about a bad feeling, like something fucking _terrible_ was going to happen, something real bad.”

He’s quiet for a long time, biting his bottom lip so hard that Party sees blood collect in the corner of his mouth. He coughs, once, shifts uncomfortably on the hard ground, and Party sees tears in his eyes. “A-and then-” He swallows, clears his throat. “But he kept talking, y’know, told me not to worry. That we had each other, that we could make through whatever it was together. Because we were best friends, and then- I mean, I thought that what he was saying was that, well, there was more than that, that there could’ve been more, and I… I…”

He trails off.

“Oh,” Party says, because he’s got a pretty good idea what Decaydance did. “Listen, Decaydance-“

“It’s Pete,” Decaydance interrupts. “Just… just Pete.”

Hazel eyes and blonde hair. A thorn-necklace tattoo, more pictures winding up his arms. Pete. Just Pete.

“I freaked out, man. I mean, so did he a little bit, and he was completely fucking surprised when I actually did… but he yelled at me to come back when I ran off. I just couldn’t face him. He tried coming after me, but I’m a better runner than he is.” His smile is sour, fingers playing with a frayed seam of his shirt. “And then-“

He chokes on his words, as if they’re suffocating him, but Party knows what he’s trying to say. He knows what happened.

Decaydance- Pete- drags in a shaky breath. “And I was fucking _sulking_ , man. I was skulking around in the desert _sulking_ when the dracs came along and attacked, and I wasn’t _fucking there_ because I was acting like a teenage girl with a crush. They- they killed one of my friends, and then they took Soul Punk with them, and Andy was left but he was out cold. And we agreed to split up and start looking for him, but… you heard what happened to him on the radio. So it’s just me left now. Me and Trick.”

Party doesn’t say a thing. He’s never been good at talking- never been good at comforting people or chasing away the demons in their head, even though he wishes that he could. Pete rubs his eyes. “Listen man,” he says softly. “I’m guessing that tomorrow might not go as well as you guys are hoping it will, so I just wanna say thanks, you know? For the ride over here. I’m just glad I managed to catch you at Dr Death’s place.”

Pete looks up at him, and he looks so small, so fragile in the firelight that he could almost pass for a kid. He’s a kid that needs to be reassured that he’s doing the right thing, he’s a kid who’s terrified, a kid who’s lost his best friend and caused another boy’s death, a kid looking for absolution, searching for forgiveness or some half-twisted form of redemption, and Party doesn’t know what else to do that scoot forward a foot or so and reach for him, and Pete falls forward wearily. Party’s arms wrap around his shoulders and Pete’s crying, crying like he’ll never be able to stop, his voice cracking and breaking and shattering into millions of glass shards all at once. And Party hates himself for what he’s said over the past few days, for what he’s told Pete about Patrick, and he suddenly realises is that after everything, it’s as all because he’s really terrified that his own plans are really as ideological as Pete’s, that BL/Ind have killed the girl too, or hurt her, made her into a BL/Ind drone just like all the others.

And he wants to say something, but he’s cut off by a bout of coughing, a disgusting hacking sound ripping its way from Pete’s throat that makes Party cringe. Pete pulls away and coughs into his hands, lifting them away when he can finally breathe. “Oh,” he says softly, and there’s blood on his fingers, traces of scarlet clinging to his chapped lips, and neither of them say a thing until Pete lifts his head and gives Party a tight smile. “Just kinda shows that you shouldn’t charge headfirst into every fight you can find without any forethought, right?”

Party frowns. “We might have a med kit in the trans-am, you know, you want me to have a look?”

Pete shakes his head. “Listen, we’ve probably got only a few hours until we’re leaving, right? I’m gonna try and sleep. Or something. Thanks, Party.”

Party wants to tell him to call him Gerard instead, just like Pete corrected _him_ , but by the time he clears his throat, Decaydance has already rolled onto his side, his back to Party. Party watches him for a while before figuring that he’s not going to get anymore sleep tonight.

Pete talks in his sleep. He cries a bit, too. He whispers the name ‘Patrick’ over and over again, like a prayer.

Party doesn’t say anything. He just stares at the sky until the sun comes up.

-

Ghoul is sitting on the hood of the trans-am, swinging his feet like a little kid as he watches Party check over the tires.

“You okay, man?” Ghoul runs a hand through his hair, spiking his fringe up into fluffed-up tufts. He’s got another hole in the knee of his pants, and he’s fidgeting with his gun, passing it from one hand to the other. “Did you even sleep last night?”

Party shrugs. “I had a few hours, yeah. I wasn’t really tired.”

Ghoul hums in agreement. “You good to go in a bit?” he asks, and Party can hear the tremble of apprehension in his voice, even though he does a good job of hiding it. Party nods, and Ghoul pauses, scratches the back of his neck, fidgets. “How much gas we got in the tank?” he finally asks.

Party takes a long time before answering. “Enough to get there,” he replies, and Ghoul nods and doesn’t need to say anything else.

-

The entrance they’re taking into Battery City is a ten kilometre stretch of tunnel, irradiated only by strips of electrical lighting fixed to the ceiling, illuminating the cold concrete blocks piled one on top of another, forming a smooth, perfect arch that sweeps up and over their heads as they drive down it. The strips of lighting flash, almost blindingly bright, stinging Party’s eyes as they drive beneath them.

They speed down it, Battery City speed restrictions be damned, the wind dragging icy claws through Party’s hair and tugging it up into scarlet tendrils, a bloody halo writhing around his head. Kobra’s sitting next to him, face expressionless, completely unreadable behind his sunglasses, but Party’s grown up with the guy, dragged him out of Battery City all those years ago, and he’s probably the only one who’d associate the way that Kobra’s constantly adjusting his glasses with anxiety.

Sometimes, Party wonders if he should ever have taken Kobra with him, out into the zones. Sometimes, he can convince himself that he made the right decision, sometimes it’s harder to do so. It’s hard to tell yourself that you’ve done the right thing when you’re driving your little brother to his death.

Decaydance (Pete, whatever) is in the back seat, dragging in shallow, hurried breaths, face pale. He’s trying to pretend that he’s still not coughing up a mouthful of blood every few minutes. Party’s thinking that even if- _if, if, if_ \- he does manage to save Soul Punk and escape alive, he might not even survive much longer anyway. His shirt had ridden up when he’d first clambered into the car, and Party had seen it- bandages made out of torn-up clothing, dirty and no doubt swimming in germs, soaked in dried blood and pus. Party’s surprised that Pete’s just managed to survive this long, but that could easily just have been out of sheer determination alone.

They manage to get about three kilometres in before they’re caught up by S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/Ws, one bike and a car, helmets and windscreen tinted black.

It’s natural now, fighting. Easy as breathing. Sight a drac, aim, fire, look for another. Watch his friends out of the corner of his eye. Breathe. Find a drac. Aim. Fire. Inhale. Exhale. Aim. Fire.  

He hits a drac square in the chest and they tumble to the floor, the scorch mark on their blazer a painful contrast to the sharp white of the material. He spins, hair in his face, red obscuring his vision, firing again.

His friends are all around him, together they’re a machine- flawless, smooth, efficient- and the group of draculoids that they’re fighting is no match for them. No; the real fight hasn’t even started yet.

They’re almost- _almost_ \- a match for Pete though. And it’s not that he’s a bad fighter- he’s quick, clever, small enough to move around the person he’s fighting with ease- but he’s also in agony. His face is grey, his movements stiff and painful, the machete slowing. He’d had a gun at one point, too, but he must’ve lost it.

He’s fighting a drac, but he’s losing, the vampiric grin closing closer as Pete falls back, and Party can’t do anything because he’s got his own drac to take care of, and the others are too far away to help Decaydance in time. Pete must be weakening now, because he’s not attacking anymore, just desperately trying to defend himself against the onslaught of blows that are knocking him about like he’s nothing more than an inconvenience, just another distraction that needs to be pushed out of the way. And the drac’s either incredibly strong, or Pete’s incredibly weak, because he’s about to be killed by the one draculoid that Party’s ever seen that’s missing a hand.

And oh no.

_‘But ‘Trick? His hand got- the blast completely shredded his hand, man. Lost everything from the wrist down.’_

Party’s too far away to hear him properly, but he can see Pete’s lips moving, as if he’s trying to talk to the mindless creature trying to put him down like a dog. He's stumbling and ducking, but he's slow, he's too slow, and the drac is pushing him back.

Dread hits Party in the stomach harder than any physical blow ever could, and as he sends a shot through a draculoid’s skull (another almost immediately replacing it, of course, like hunting dogs baying for blood) he realises that he needs to get over there. Fast.

And the draculoid fighting Pete lunges at him, knocking the machete out of his hands and kicking him in the stomach, hard. It draws something like a yelp or a whimper from him, or at least the start of one, as he folds almost double, his hands going to his middle as his knees give way and he falls to the ground. Party sees him retch and there’s blood, glistening on the tarmac, trickling down his chin, and it's almost some grotesque mockery of the draculoid mask leering down at him.

Party pushes the final draculoid down and reaches Decaydance just at the same time as Kobra does, both of them ready to fire, but Pete’s holding up a bloody hand and coughing wetly as he pulls himself up onto one knee and says “Guys. Don’t. Wait.”

And he’s reaching up for the draculoid, who’s staring down at him with their chest heaving, looking about as confused as the rest of them.

Except for Pete.

Except for Pete, who’s looking up at the faceless, mindless BL/Ind soldier with absolute, burning certainty in his eyes, his hand extended towards them. “’Trick?” he whispers, and there’s more blood bubbling up from his lips. His breath is stuttering, staccato. “’Trick,” he says again, “it’s me, ‘Trick, it’s Pete.”

The draculoid doesn’t attack. It doesn’t move a muscle, actually, and Pete seems to take it as his cue to stagger onto both feet, blood dripping from his chin now, whiskey eyes wide, the colour dancing in the flickering light. “It’s okay, Patrick,” he says softly. “I’ve found you. I’ve got you, Patrick, it’s me. It’s Pete. Your best friend.”

The drac takes a step back, fumbling for their gun, but their hands are shaking so badly that they drop it instead, and it skitters across the tarmac.

“I know it’s you. I’d recognise you anywhere.” Pete’s voice is weak, and he coughs again. When the drac hit him, they hit him hard. “You remember me, right? Remember all the songs I wrote? You sang them so well, 'Trick, every time you sing it's like the first time. And remember all the ones I wrote for you? Remember this one, Patrick?” He takes a step forward and tries to clear his throat, before burbling out in a broken voice: _“And in the end, I’d do it all again. I think you’re my best friend…_ ”

The drac doesn’t move. Party can see the glint of eyes through the eyeholes of the mask, and the draculoid’s gaze is fixed on Pete. There’s more coughing. More blood.

"I'm not leaving here without you, Patrick, I hope you know that. I've fucked up enough times for now, and I'm gonna get you out of here. Me and you, okay?"

No response. The drac tries to take another step away, but Pete follows them this time, not giving them any chance to create any distance between them. He's got his hands wrapped around his middle, like he's trying to stop himself from falling apart here and now. "Or… do you remember the time I left, ‘Trick? In the middle of the night? When… when I went on a suicide mission by myself back to Battery City, and you travelled non-stop for fourty-seven hours to stop my sorry ass? I wrote you a song after that as well, to promise that I’d never do it again.” His voice is getting quieter now, but he’s still determined, his gaze steady even if his balance isn’t. “Remember, ‘Trick? _‘I got troubled thoughts, and a self-esteem to match. What a catch…. What a catch…’_ ”

This time, the drac does respond; staggering backwards, one hand pressed to their face, gloved fingers winding through the black hair, tearing the mask from their head.

And there’s the man from Pete’s picture: gaunt, tired, missing the hat and the glasses, wearing stark white rather than the checked trousers and the cardigan and the jacket, but there he is anyway, his expression a sorrowful concoction of horror and relief as he looks down at the mask in his fist, the white clothes he’s dressed in, before up to Pete, staring at him like he holds every answer that he’s ever needed in his eyes. His hair’s a dirty blonde and his eyes are bright blue and filling with tears as Pete gives a small smile, and he manages to take a step before the two collapse into each other, both of them crying, both of them choking out ‘sorry’s and rushed promises of forgiveness as they stand there, just holding each other, just breathing in the feel of the two of them together again. Pete's got his hand clutching Patrick's draculoid blazer, the other wrapping tight around his friend's shoulders. His eyes are closed but Party can see the tears tracking down his cheeks, mingling with the blood on his face and running down his chin.

"Fuck," Party hears Patrick say hoarsely, his voice far deeper than Party would've imagined for a guy of his size. "I never thought I'd see you again, Pete. I never... Oh fuck, Pete, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry Pete, I got you, thank you, thank you..."

Kobra gives Party a nudge and a tight smile and they take a handful of steps away. They two could probably use some privacy, if he's honest. Ghoul and Jet are walking over to them, their own enemies disposed of, appraising the small figure in white as they approach.

Pete’s clinging onto Patrick’s small frame, like Patrick’s a raft whilst Pete’s a drowning man, running a hand through the unbrushed hair and his fingers over Patrick’s face like he can’t believe that he’s real. “God,” Party hears him choke out, his voice heavy with emotion and blood. “I found you. I- I fucking found you ‘Trick, I never thought I’d do it.”

And then he tumbles straight back into apologising again, whispering out how sorry he is, how he didn’t mean to do what he did, how he’s never going to let him go again. Patrick just holds him tighter, reassures him, gives him the forgiveness that Pete was so desperate for a night ago.

“What do you know,” Jet says softly, but he’s grinning. “Decaydance managed it after all.”

Party counts it all down to luck. They’re just lucky that particular group of dracs happened to be positioned so close to the exit of the tunnel. They’re just lucky that Pete was the one that draculoid Patrick happened to focus on. They’re just lucky that Pete recognised him, talked Patrick back to him.

There’s still traces of blood on Pete’s lips, his breathing cutting out to little more than a dry rasp, but maybe they’ll be lucky enough that Pete manages to survive that, too. And maybe, just maybe, they might be able to make it out alive too.

Of course, luck can only last so long.

None of them see the drac at first. There’s the sound of footsteps behind them, a flash of white clothing, the impatient hum of a ray gun as the draculoid fires, the snap electricity snapping out like a whip, a flash of bright light, and Party sees the blast, sees Patrick twisting past Pete, the draculoid stumbling backwards as Kobra’s shot catches them in the shoulder and Ghoul’s hits them square in the throat.

The impact of the shot in draws something like a gasp from Patrick’s throat, a half-formed whimper than never makes it past his lips, and then he falls, hits the ground, and Pete screams, shrill, horrified, throwing himself down onto the tarmac next to his best friend. And it’s an ecstasy of fumbling to search for a pulse, finding none, screaming again, piercing and sharp and broken glass, the sound ripping itself out of Pete like it's got claws.

“Patrick!” he screams, and he sounds wretched, broken, and he’s grabbing him, desperately trying to shake him awake, but Patrick’s head just lolls back, a trickle of blood snaking down from the corner of his mouth. “ _Patrick! PATRICK!_ Please, Patrick, please, oh fuck fuck, please please, Patrick, don’t do this to me, not now, _Patrick_ , please, Patrick don't fucking do this to me please don't do this Patrick. Patrick Patrick-“

He’s retching, choking, blood splashing from his lips and landing on the white clothes, a stark contrast, like roses bursting through snow. Before, he’s always said Patrick’s name like a prayer, or a kiss, something delicate and perfect and to be cherished, but now it sounds as if it’s been coated in razor blades, sounds as if it’s being torn from him.

Party's shaking, words caught in his throat like tar, and he doesn't know what to say, he doesn't know what he can do. His ray gun's hanging from limp fingers and there's a dull noise in his head, like static, and he can't think straight. He can't open move.

Pete breathes out another broken, hacking sob, and it sounds like he's drowning.   

There’s a hum of vehicles in the distance. Dracs. More of them.

They’ve got to leave. They’ve got to leave _now_ , otherwise all of this will have been for nothing.

Party looks at Kobra and then down at Pete, and he hates himself.

Pete’s got his face buried in Patrick’s chest, choking out muffled words, promises, and Kobra kneels down next to him, tries vainly to pry Pete from Patrick. “Decaydance,” he says gently. “Decaydance, we’ve got to go.”

The little stream of blood is beginning to pool at the crook of Patrick’s mouth. His eyes are still open. Party has to look away.

Pete shakes his head but otherwise doesn’t move. He’s alternating between choking and sobbing, coughing up more blood, fresh blood, his chest heaving, and Party looks down to see even more pooling beneath Pete’s knees, seeping out from the reopened wound in his middle.

“Please, Decaydance… _Pete_ … please, you’ve got to come with us.”

Party’s not surprised that Kobra knows Decaydance’s real name as well, but he catches a glimpse of a flicker of confusion in both Ghoul and Jet’s eyes.

Pete shakes his head again, but this time he lifts his head slightly, the entire lower half of his face stained scarlet. “I can’t leave him,” he croaks out. “He’ll be scared.”

The growl of engines is growing closer, and they might only have minutes left. They've got to go. If they get caught now, then everything... all of this... it'll be in vain. They'll never get to BL/Ind.

“Pete,” Kobra presses, “Pete, Patrick’s dead. I’m sorry, Pete, I’m so sorry, but we’ve got to go. We gotta go.”

There’s tear tracks through the mess of blood on Pete’s skin. He can’t seem to take his eyes from Patrick’s face, raking over every minute detail, dragging every single fragment of information into his memory. “No,” he says. “I can’t leave him alone. I can’t fail him again. I- I promised that I’d find him, that I’d never leave him. I can’t go now. I can’t.”

“Decaydance. _Pete_.” Party interrupts, and all he wants to do is shake him, but he’s feeling the same sense of dread again. He knows that won’t work. He knows that _nothing_ might work. “Pete. We need to go. If they find you here then they’ll kill you. They’ll hurt you, they’ll hurt you a lot, and then they’ll kill you.”

“No.” Pete lifts Patrick’s head on his knees, brushing a stray dirty blonde hair from Patrick’s forehead. A spot of blood drips from Pete’s lips and splatters on Patrick’s cheek. “He spent all these years protecting me from my demons. The least I can do is protect him from his.”

The draculoids are getting closer.

“Party.” It’s Ghoul, his hand on Party’s shoulder. “Dude, he’s not coming. We gotta go.”

Party looks back down at Pete again, at the way he’s holding Patrick in his arms, Patrick’s name like a mantra on his lips, like a prayer or a poison.

Ghoul pulls him to his feet. Party doesn’t resist. Pete doesn’t seem to see them go.

Party makes his way to the trans-am in a trance, empty. It’s almost as if all the emotion, all the adrenaline has been ripped out of his body in the last few minutes.

He doesn’t take his eyes from Pete until he’s slid into the car. He pretends he doesn’t see Kobra wiping his eyes before putting on his sunglasses again.

He adjusts the rearview mirror, catches sight of Pete in it again. Twenty feet behind them. Party can’t tell if he’s breathing anymore.

He pulls in a breath but it feels raw, burning, like he's choking down smoke. He tries to speak, but every word tastes of blood. “C’mon,” he finally says. “Let’s finish this.”

He floors the accelerator and there’s a scream of rubber as the tires spin, grip the tarmac, throw them forward. The radio’s silent for once, but the roar of the engine fills Party’s ears, like animals baying for blood. They tear through the tunnel, the car eating up the distance between them. The rope around his heart is still there, tightening with every metre they travel, leading him straight on, to the heart of Battery City, to Korse and the fight, to the girl that they’ve promised to save.

He doesn’t look back once.

**Author's Note:**

> I really should be revising at the moment, but I've had this idea stuck in my head for a while now.  
> Also I'm sorry.  
> Heh.


End file.
